A surprisingly pleasant week without Internet

Reka Szekely

I wouldn’t quite say I’m addicted to social media and the Internet; I’m a frequent user.

When I headed off on vacation last week to Cuba, I knew that if I wanted to avoid paying insane roaming fees, I’d have to turn off my cellular data and my addiction, ummm, frequent usage.

So, a clean cut it was to be other than a quick peek into my work e-mail account on Monday afternoon on the resort’s computers.

There were moments when I missed it. Instead of texting a missing friend I actually had to find her on the resort. My fingers itched to check the weather forecast or just to quickly log on to Twitter and see what was trending.

Missing a week’s worth of the news cycle felt like a year. Still, the world didn’t end when my cell phone wasn’t glued to my hands and for the most part I found I didn’t miss it all that much. The beautiful scenery around me sure made up for the loss.

My friends commented how nice it was to be completely cut off, especially from work.

Of course when we arrived back in Canada, no more than a second after the plane touched the ground, the passengers began whipping out their cellphones.